WEDNESDAY, Aug. 3, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- A positive attitude about aging can help seniors cope with stress, a small study suggests.

"We found that people in the study who had more positive attitudes toward aging were more resilient in response to stress -- meaning that there wasn't a significant increase in negative emotions," study author Jennifer Bellingtier, a Ph.D. student at North Carolina State University, said in a university news release.

The study included 43 people, aged 60 to 96. The participants were asked how they felt about aging and then completed a daily questionnaire for eight straight days. The questionnaire asked about levels of stress, fear, irritability or distress.

According to study senior author Shevaun Neupert, "This tells us that the way we think about aging has very real consequences for how we respond to difficult situations when we're older. That affects our quality of life and may also have health ramifications." Neupert is an associate professor of psychology at the university.